Horace, thanks for your reply. Your frustration about the incompleteness of the E&K travel report is understandable, but by questioning everything that was or was not measured or reported, and by generating a lot of new uncertainties you certainly do not help those who seek to converge to possible conclusions.
I guess that the saying "If it looks like an elephant, sounds like an elephant, smells like an elephant and feels like an elephant it is probably an elephant" will not get your full endorsement :>). My post was a reaction to the following part of your original post on Sept 21st. "Based on the T vs t slopes it seems possible the power for most of the first part of the elbow, for abut 9 minutes, was around 533 W, and the second part of the elbow, and maybe beyond, it was about 748 W, the power applied in the Krivit demonstration. This is certainly more credible than a nearly instant power surge of 4 kW when the temperature hit 100°C. It looks as if power was possibly switched to the preheater element at some initial point and then the band heater kicked in at a later point. There is no way of knowing exactly what electrical power was applied throughout because it was not recorded, and most importantly not integrated via a kWh meter. There is no way of knowing the actual enthalpy was generated because the output heat flow was not measured." My point is that E&K DID record and monitor the applied electrical power by measuring the input current and they found it to be basically constant, with a decrease in time. The fact that they do not provide this info in a nice time sequenced metafile does not render it obsolete. With a power fairly constant over time you do not need to measure and record it every few seconds or so. And a KWh meter to do the integration is also not really necessary. You also seem to imply that E&K somehow failed to include the possible power for the preheater element: The power source is not the only issue, though that seems to me not credible without a kWh meter or continual data acquisition. Also, it makes no sense to drive only the band heater when the auxiliary heater is supposedly what heats the fuel and triggers the reaction. Why was no mention made of this? But that's because you created this "auxiliary heater problem" yourself in your first post: "There appears to be two power cords running from two receptacles on the rightmost (in the photo) back side of the blue box. This could indicate that both the main band heater and the auxiliary heater were in use, indicating more than 300 W was in use at some point." The electrical current was measured at the input of the blue box, so everything is included. E&K specifically mention the 30W to drive the instrumentation. So I think my 364 Watts of total max input power are in the right ballpark. Of course the flowrate of input water should have been properly recorded, but there is no indication that it did change considerably over time. They quote Levi as saying that a 5% error is a conservative estimate. As for the temperature measurements, you can think of all possible schemes, but if you look at the pictures of the chimnee, and see that the output for the hose is above the point where the thermometer is inserted, it is very likely that the measurements do reflect the temperature of the water/steam. All in all, I think there is evidence that a certain amount of excess heat was generated. In view of the steam uncertainties and the geometrical constraints outlined by you it may well be considerably less than the calculated 4.4 kW, but to me that is less important. Further understanding of the physics, finetuning and non-Rossi engineering will find the practical operating range for this technology. We just might have an elephant in the room ....... regards Henk I emailed a response to Henk Houkes over 4 hours ago, but I think the bad subject line prevented acceptance by the server. On Sep 23, 2011, at 1:02 PM, Henk Houkes wrote: > > Horace, > Regarding the input power measurements you may want to re-read the > Nyteknik article athttp://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/energi_miljo/ > energi/article3144827.ece > It states: A phenomenon that Kullander and Essén noted was that the > curve for the water temperature at the output showed a steady > increase up to about 60 degrees centigrade, after which the > increase escalated. > The curve then became steeper, it clearly had a new derivative. At > the same time there was no increase in power consumption, it rather > decreased when it got warmer, said Essén. > This suggests that contrary to your assumptions, the input power > (actually the input current) was monitored and did not increase at > the moment of the bend. > My comments were a review of the article: http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/EssenHexperiment.pdf I do not find this remark in the article. However, the remark clearly is quoted in the article you reference above however. In any case I take the remark to mean there was momentary monitoring of the current at that time, not continuous monitoring of the power. My general point about all this is the casual nature of the study and report, the very brief time spent with the device, do not bring the study to a high level of credibility. The power measurement is only a small part of the overall picture. > > The noticed decrease of input current is consistent with a positive > temperature coefficient of the band heater resistor. > With a resistive load the powerfactor will be close to unity. > The current probe was not calibrated, it may have been off by 5%. > Another correction to be made to the stated inputpower is that the > actual mains voltage in Bologna is 230V i.s.o. 220V. That"s another > 5%. > It all adds up to an inputpower of maximum 364 Watts, which is by > far not enough to boil the water. > > So the main conclusion from E&K that the e-Cat generates extra heat > still stands. > It is not known with certainty what the thermometer measured. The temperature curve makes no sense. The only thing known is it measures the temperature somewhere inside an insulating jacket. It is not known with certainty the total energy actually generated. It is not known with certainty the actual input flow rate at all times. It is not known with certainty the water overflow rate. It is not known with certainty the output temperature, for either the liquid or gas phase. You are right that some excess power is feasible if all is as represented and assumed. The problem of credibility is in the inconsistencies and lack of continual data recording or integrating. It appears from evidence of inconsistencies that all is possibly not as presented and assumed. > Of course you could argue that there must have been an additional > powersource, or the poor chaps did not clamp the current meter > around the right wire etc, but that seems unlikely. > The power source is not the only issue, though that seems to me not credible without a kWh meter or continual data acquisition. Also, it makes no sense to drive only the band heater when the auxiliary heater is supposedly what heats the fuel and triggers the reaction. Why was no mention made of this? The temperature curves do not make sense, which brings into question the internal structure. For example, there could be separate compartments, one capable of generating steam, another through which water only flows and then overflows. We don't even know for sure, from the report, that more than 300 W thermal power was produced. The main, and even underlined, conclusion of the report was that "Any chemical process for producing 25 kWh from any fuel in a 50 cm3 container can be ruled out." This conclusion is not credible because it is not credible all the water was converted to steam, unless perhaps the hose was never attached during the steam generating period. This means the 4.39 kW number is not credible, and thus the 25 kWh number is not credible, and thus 25 the kWh number is not credible. Furthermore, unless the stainless steel container for the Ni, plus any extended heat transfer means, was much larger than 50 ml, it is not credible that 4 kW or even 1 kW came from it. There could have been energy generated, for sure. There are tantalizing hints. What is lacking is credible evidence for excess energy. It strikes me as nonsensical to devote so little time to developing iron clad calorimetry. A month or two effort seems to me highly justified, given billions of dollars might be at stake. Alternatively, an organization like Earthtech International, which has its own equipment and expertise, and which does this kind of evaluation at no cost, could be used with little expenditure of time or money. > regards > > Henk > I think my conclusion regarding the report makes sense. Here it is again: CONCLUSION The report has various inconsistencies which prevent any solid conclusions from being drawn. The E-cat only has value if the total energy out for a long operation is much greater than total energy in. It is feasibly inexpensive and not complex to directly measure total energy in vs total energy out for long runs of this sized device, measuring only the electrical input and thermal output of the device independent of the device itself. Such a long term total energy balance measurement eliminates any need to know the internals of the device or to account for the extreme complexities of thermal dynamics to determine its energy generating capacity. This report is not a scientific paper, but a travel report as stated in the article. It is an excellent report of what happened. However, for the conclusions of the report to be scientifically credible a great deal more is required in the way of calorimetry and data collection. The standard of evaluation of this kind of device for commercial purposes, which could entail the investment of millions or billions of dollars, should rise to a much higher standard than requirements for publishing a scientific paper. Further, because the field itself has such a controversial history, and yet has a colossal potential to do much good for billions of people, there is a duty to rise to the highest possible standard of data acquisition to avoid the extensive damage failure of such a highly visible public affair can have on what little research is now funded, and to reach that high standard as quickly as possible. Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
